


Catching Up

by chaoticamanda



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, atots, ford asks what's become of fiddleford
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-17
Updated: 2015-07-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 18:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4359503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticamanda/pseuds/chaoticamanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kids were looking at him expectedly, and he grew hot under their gaze. “I...I was just wondering if-- if you knew of my old friend, Fiddleford. If he was still around.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Catching Up

“Uh, excuse me...children?” Ford was peering around the entrance to the kitchen, where Mabel was happily coloring and Dipper was pouring over a newspaper. He knew that Stanley had told him to stay away from the children, but Stanley was doing a “tour”, whatever that meant, and Ford was woefully behind in the way this generation worked.

“Grunkle Ford!” Mabel exclaimed, startling Dipper, who looked up and blushed, pushing the newspaper away.

“Uh, yeah. Forgive me, I’m still new to this whole “grunkle” thing,” Ford stepped into the kitchen, his kitchen, “You two know this town fairly well, correct?”

Dipper shot a sideways look at Mabel as if to silence whatever was going to come out of her mouth before he coughed a short, “Yeah.”

Ford began to feel nervous, shifting in his boots. He’d discovered that his room had previously been sealed off, but had been reopened before he got there. Most of his outdated clothes had survived in their tomb, but he was still wearing his only pair of shoes. The kids were looking at him expectedly, and he grew hot under their gaze. “I...I was just wondering if-- if you knew of my old friend, Fiddleford. If he was still around.”

Mabel’s face dropped, and Dipper looked away from Ford, his lips pulling into a frown. Ford backpedaled, desperately hoping that Stanley wouldn’t choose this moment to walk in. “I apologize-- it’s okay, if you don’t, I just--”

To his surprise, Dipper was the one to speak up, “We do. Know him, that is.”

“Oh!” Ford felt a little lighter, hoping that he’d made at least one step in the right direction. “Does he-- can I call him? Is that still a thing?”

The twins looked at each other, and he knew they were communicating silently between themselves. It made his chest ache, remembering a time when he’d looked at his own brother--

 _E_ _nough._ He couldn’t think of that.

Mabel was the one who moved first, sliding out of her seat and grabbing the man’s hand. “Come on.”

Ford, startled, almost ripped his hand out of her own, but stopped himself at her gentle look. He heard Dipper sigh before slipping out of his own seat. He thought maybe they were leading him to a phone, but Mabel pulled him right through the front door. “Are phones really...really not used anymore?”

“He doesn’t have one,” Dipper answered, starting down the road with Mabel falling in stride with him.

“Uh...I think you’re...Grunkle will be upset if I leave with--”

“He’ll forgive us,” Mabel said confidently, “and you too, you know. He can’t stay mad forever.”

 _But I can,_ he thought to himself, looking to the ground in shame. Ford knew that it wasn’t ever supposed to end up like this, with two estranged twins dimensions apart, with Ford kicking his elderly brother out of his own house after thirty years. But it was the way it was, and Ford had long since learned how to accept the blows his brother always seemed to supply.

“So, uh, you wrote the journals,” Dipper said nervously, looking at his great uncle out of the corner of his eye.

“I thought that’d been established,” Ford grinned at the boy, attempting some humor, but Dipper’s frown only deepened.

“You know about the Society of the Blind Eye then. It was in the journals.”

“Oh, yes, I’d heard about them. I suspected it had something to do with Fiddleford...is he leading it or something? Is that where we’re going?” The last time Ford had seen McGucket, it had been when he quit the project. He’d only had assumptions about his involvement with the Society.

“No, it’s sorta...disbanded, I guess. We kinda...wiped their memories about the whole thing,” Mabel waved a hand dismissively, running ahead to observe a perched butterfly.

“You did _what?”_ Ford choked out, stopping in his tracks.

“It’s a long story,” Dipper bit his lip, “We’re going to tell you. You need to see McGucket first. He...He could tell you.”

“I’m going to need some answers soon,” Ford said sternly, irritated by the children’s elusive nature.

He heard Dipper mutter, “Don’t we all.”

They walked for a few more minutes before they came upon a redheaded teenager walking the way they had came. The children seemed to know her, and pulled her aside before Ford could even ask who she was.

“How’s the town?” Mabel asked anxiously, “No one was hurt, right?”

“Not that I know of,” the redhead answered, her face tight, “But the Sheriff found Old Man McGucket trying to help a little girl, and he was pretty shaken up. Kept screaming about the end of the world.”

“Oh, no,” Dipper scrubbed at his face, “Is he back where...he lives?”

“Yeah, Blubbs brought him home. Look, I’m late--”

“Say no more,” Mabel pulled Dipper away, “Stan’s a little...worn out today. He’ll be crabby.”

“Why this time?” The redhead asked tiredly, sighing.

“He reunited with his twin brother who was trapped in another dimension,” Dipper called.

“Wait, wha?”

The kids had pulled Ford forward and let their friend fade into the background. They were nearing the town dump, full of trash, and Ford hoped they could hurry past it. The smell was almost unbearable. The kids also seemed to be affected, twisting their hands together and letting out little sighs.

He was surprised when they stopped in front of it, taking deep breaths. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Stanley would kill him if they came back anything less than perfect.

“We’re here,” Dipper said, offering his grunkle a sympathetic smile.

“Where?”

“Fiddleford’s house,” Mabel answered, tugging the old man forward.

“The dump?” Ford spat, almost gagging. “Is this some kind of kid’s joke?”

The look in Dipper’s eyes sent shivers down Ford’s spine, “We wish.”

The boy stepped in front of them all, looking towards what seemed to be a small hut made of trash. He called out, “McGucket? It’s Dipper and Mabel! Are you here?”

Ford heard a shuffling noise, and then a hunched over, rickety old man came tottering out of the hut with surprising speed. The man had a large straw hat and a long, overgrown white beard, and was wearing a pair of cracked glasses. Those were the only things he recognized. Ford was stunned beyond silence.

“Dipper!” The old man said in a, for lack of better term, hillbilly accent, “I thoughted you’d gone and got ended by that doomsday device!”

“No, no, McGucket, it didn’t end the world! The countdown was for a portal, and it--,” Dipper faltered, and Ford notice his fingers shaking, “it brought back...an old friend.”

Fiddleford, as if just noticing Stanford, cautiously wobbled over to the stranger. Ford felt the urge to cry as he stared down at the colleague he’d once been on equal footing with. “Who’s you?” McGucket asked.

Ford wilted.

“He’s....do you remember when we watched your memories?” Mabel gave McGucket a pat, “You said you’d been starting to remember more. Is there anything new?”

“Oh, no, little lady, just odds and ends that don’t fit my brain. I’m still just a crazy ol’ cook.” Dipper inhaled sharply, and Ford saw Mabel’s face crumple.

“You’re not a crazy old cook, McG-- Fiddleford. You did great things. We saw.”

McGucket turned toward Dipper with a sad smile, “I’s just a hillbilly. I forgot anything worth rememberin’. The world’s gonna go upside down and that’s how I’s gonna be.”

“You were a genius,” The words left Ford’s mouth before he could stop them. “You were...my friend.”

The old man’s entire demeanor shifted, and his eyes came into focus. He backed away from Ford with vigor, fear plain on his face. “You! You!” His eye’s darted to Dipper and Mabel, “Out! Make him leave! Oh! Oh no, oh no!”

Ford felt himself being dragged away by the kids, but he couldn’t stop staring at what had once been his assistant. When they were outside of the dump and the shouts had faded, he turned to the children. “What happened?”

Mabel shifted uncomfortably, and Dipper looked up at his grunkle like it was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. “Well, you.”

“What?” Ford choked, feeling a crater in his chest open, begging to swallow him whole. He knew deep down that it was true. That it was his fault Fiddleford had become some kind of hermit.

Dipper and Mabel explained it to him, all of it. They told him about the Society. About the laptop. About Fiddleford’s family. Everything.

When they’d finally reached the Shack, as the kid’s so fondly called it, they scampered off, giving him wary looks. Ford could see his brother eyeing him angrily from across the yard, but he barely felt it’s heat. Something in him wanted to say, _I’m sorry._

Instead, he thought, _I guess we really are twins._

**Author's Note:**

> trying to work through some writer's block. excited to see the way everything's going to play out after atots,


End file.
